Singapore ties its AI data-centre boom to a green-energy mandate, and just handed out the first 200MW
Digital Realty, Equinix, Keppel Data Centres and ST Telemedia each won 50MW on Jurong Island, on condition at least half the power is green.
On 21 August, Singapore's Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) named the winners of the country's second Data Centre Call for Application (DC-CFA2): Digital Realty, Equinix, Keppel Data Centres and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, each awarded 50MW of new capacity on Jurong Island: 200MW in total, chosen from more than 20 proposals.
DC-CFA2 was launched by EDB and IMDA on 1 December 2025, the latest step in a controlled-growth approach to data centres that lets the sector keep expanding as an AI and digital-infrastructure hub without letting the buildout overwhelm the power grid or the limited land available for it.
The sustainability strings attached
Winning a share of that capacity took more than a strong pitch. Each operator has to design, build and run its data centre to hit a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.25 or better at full IT load, a measure of how much of a facility's total power reaches its servers rather than being lost to cooling and other overhead, and obtain BCA-IMDA Green Mark for Data Centres Platinum certification, the country's top efficiency rating.
At least half of each operator's new capacity must also run on green energy pathways rather than the grid's mostly gas-fired supply: biomethane, low-carbon ammonia or hydrogen, fuel cells paired with carbon capture, or building-integrated solar power.
Every DC-CFA2 operator must hit a Power Usage Effectiveness of 1.25 or better at full load, and run at least half its new capacity on green energy.
A smaller, earlier project already shows what that can look like in practice. DayOne Data Centres broke ground this year on its first Singapore facility, a 20MW AI-ready data centre designed to run on up to 100% renewable energy, backed by a 10-year power purchase agreement with Sembcorp and a pilot solid oxide fuel cell system it is studying with the National University of Singapore, aimed at LEED Platinum and Green Mark Platinum certification.
Why Singapore is doing this
Data centres sit at the centre of a genuine tension for Singapore: the country wants to be trusted as a hub for AI investment, but has limited land and power to spare for the energy-hungry facilities AI needs. DC-CFA2 is one of the government's main tools for reconciling the two: letting capacity grow while forcing the growth itself to be cleaner, in step with the national push toward net zero by 2050.
Sources: TechStories, EDB/IMDA fact sheet, Data Center News Asia
